7. What It’s Going To Take –
THE SERENDIPITOUS CHURCH

Church, and the word church when referring to a local church) has come under intense scrutiny and condemnation for its various scandals involving sexual abuses and financial misappropriations. To make matters worse, rather than the Church’s prophets leading the condemnation, it has largely fallen to secular agencies such as the media and the justice system to highlight these atrocious misrepresentations of Christ. And to make matters even worst, the Church has too often denied its guilt and defended those responsible. Is it wonder now that the Church is held in such contempt by mainstream culture? Is anyone actually surprised at the failure of what many church leaders were arguing for (the sanctity of marriage with time-honoured arguments) against such aberrations of marriage, such as ‘same-sex marriage’ or ‘polygamous marriage’, when other church leaders were divorcing their wives or being exposed as adulterers? Is there any hope for the Church to become who Christ died to build? Yes.
So that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5:27
Ephesians 5:27
THE BODY OF CHRIST



How will the body of Christ look into the future? This depends almost entirely on one factor…
IT STARTS WITH A CHURCH’S PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
The one common trait of all growing churches, whether they be a city mega-church, or a country church, is the calibre of its leadership. It doesn’t matter if the leader is full-time, part-time, or bi-vocational. It doesn’t particularly matter if they are seminary trained or not. What matters is their competence, resilience, passion (Rom. 12:11), giftedness, and determination. Consider the Apostle Paul. There were times when he was full-time (enabled by the missions support of other churches, Phil. 4:14-15, 1Cor. 9:6) and other times when he was bi-vocational (when he served as a tent-maker to support his apostolic ministry, Acts 18:3; 1Cor. 4:12). What made Paul, and the churches he planted, successful, was that he focussed on Christ (Phil 3:9-10) and the Word of God (1Tim. 4:13) and was led by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:13-14).
And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
Acts 16:6-7
Acts 16:6-7
Added to this, Paul understood that Christ’s Church was multi-faceted. While he evangelised to pioneer churches, he never lost sight of the need to help these churches become evangelising churches. In order for this to happen effectively, he worked at ensuring their elders and deacons were well-grounded in God’s Word and sound doctrine. He set strict guidelines for godly conduct for those in the congregations and insisted that elders and deacons were the ones who set the highest example of what this looked like.
¶ The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?
First Timothy 3:1-5
First Timothy 3:1-5

Louisiana State Penitentiary is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. Many of the inmates are serving life sentences and will never be released. A devout Christian, Cain encouraged a spiritual atmosphere in the prison to build a culture of morality and to help inmates serve their time. Under his leadership, violent incidents decreased markedly among the inmate population of more than 5,000.
Cain improved relations with the media, and allowed several documentaries to be filmed at the prison during his tenure. He said that he wanted people outside to see the lives of the men and understand them. He established positive incentives, including a television station so that all prisoners could see some programs. He supported the newsmagazine and radio. The Angola Prison Rodeo, football, and prize fights, are all filmed by TV crews. The latter two activities were started under Cain. On the other side, he worked to increase compassion, establishing a prison-run hospice program in 1997. The changes which he brought about at the prison are detailed in the 2005 book Cain’s Redemption: A Story of Hope and Transformation in America’s Bloodiest Prison by Dennis Shere. In 2008, Cain became the longest-serving warden in the history of Angola.
Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl_Cain
Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl_Cain
The ministry of Burl Cain at Angola Prison resulted in the transformation of thousands of ‘lifers’. Eight inmate churches were planted in the prison, as well as a Theological Seminary. As with every other effective church in the world, it was the leadership of Burl Cain which God was able to use to bring about the redemption of Angola Prison.
If the Church today is to have any hope of being the agents of Christ’s hope to the world we must at least get this foundational principle for church leadership right! Sadly, there are some churches where elders and deacons are appointed because they are popular or generous rather than because they are called and qualified.
¶ Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.First Timothy 3:8-13
The pastoral leader of a church is called by God to care for those He places in their charge. They do not do this because it is a job. They do not this because they couldn’t find a better job. They do not do this because of their own psychological neediness to be needed or affirmed. They do not this because to ‘grow their ministry’. They do this because they are called by God to gather and shepherd His sheep. This involves paying a price. It means staying and standing in the face of opposition and adversity. It may mean sleeplessness, impoverishment, or poor health. And they do it gladly and willingly.
He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
John 10:12-13
John 10:12-13
A PROPHETIC CHURCH

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
First Timothy 3:15
First Timothy 3:15

It is not political for a pastor to criticise or oppose a government’s proposed legislative agenda. It is love. It is also their prophetic responsibility for the office to which God has called them. This is why more pastors must write to politicians and legislators expressing reasoned concerns about legislation dressed up in soft buzz words like – ‘equality’, ‘dignity’, ‘compassion’, ‘health’, ‘reproductive’, ‘justice’, ‘fairness’, and ‘right’ – which are in fact concealing a deadly and harmful poison concocted from an attempt to legitimatise: abuse, misuse, and even murder!

The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.
Proverbs 29:25
but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.
Proverbs 29:25
Recently polling in America among young Evangelicals shows that they have become less committed to the inerrancy of Scripture because in their minds it is now outdated about its views of sexuality. While this is concerning and even alarming, it is sadly not surprising when many pastors refuse to openly explain what the Bible teaches about sexual purity and why it teaches it!
But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
Revelation 2:14
Revelation 2:14
A SERENDIPITOUS CHURCH

Bringing the poorest Muslims and Christians together to form relationships, providing both with educational opportunities, vocational skills, paying school fees for destitute orphans, whose Muslim and Christian parents killed each other, helping forsaken Christian and Muslim widows… all goes a long way to breaking down enmity, atoning for community bitterness, providing hope that changes behaviour, and sharing Christ where once the door was shut. These are the kind of responses that are needed, rather than complaints about the faults of others. These are the things we and others are doing, reaching thousands, which studies and our own experiences show work. If we don’t want Christians persecuted, then this is what needs to be done.
THIS is Jesus’ response to terrorism, from any source.
THIS is Jesus’ response to terrorism, from any source.
A world where 1% percent of the population own 50% of the world’s wealth, wealth safely tucked away, while 10.5 million kids, just in Nigeria alone, are out of school because their damaged families can’t afford school fees, points us to the underlying issues that are at the heart of our problem. The fact that a school is cheaper to build than the cost of one bomb dropped from a drone, must say a lot about the world we live in. This must impact us.
I recently heard a professor of Philosophical Theology describe the message of the Church, as entrusted in the Gospel – the Scriptures – as, “high comedy”! I was shocked to hear such irreverence from such an eminent professor of a respected Seminary – until he explained what ‘high comedy’ was. We live in a world where the only comedy we experience is low comedy. He explained that ‘comedy’ originally meant unexpected. He went on to explain that “high comedy” meant ‘something so surprising and unexpected it was shocking‘. He declared that this was indeed what the Gospel was! The God who created us had been betrayed us, and even though He warned us what the penalty for doing this was, we defiantly resisted Him and His plea – and despite this, He gave up everything to rescue us and adopt us as His privileged children for all eternity! High comedy indeed! Serendipity indeed!
A CHURCH FOR EVERYONE
One of the most pleasing things about what God has been doing in our church lately is how He has been diversifying it. One of the challenges that all churches are facing at the moment, and we are particularly struggling with, is helping people to realise the priority Christ has placed on gathering together to worship together, to heed together, to pray together, to minister to one another, to be pastored together, to reach out together, to pool our time, talent, and treasure together, so that the whole body of Christ is built up and together makes Christ beautiful in the eyes of the world. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters, if the devil was serious about undermining the cause of Christ, the first thing he would do is to distract believers from assembling together. It will be a sure sign of the church’s battle-readiness when most of its soldiers are not AWOL and make assembling together each Sunday a sacred priority. It will be then, that the Church of the Living God may well become who Christ died to build and we may get a glimpse of heaven on earth – especially the bit mentioned in Revelation 7:9!
Pastor Andrew
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